1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to user authentication and identification methods, i.e. methods and apparatus for determining the identity of a user. More specifically, the invention relates to the ability to recognize the identity of a speaker given a sample of his/her voice.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The field of personal identification includes a recognition or authentication aspect which entails verifying a claimed identity, and a recognition or identification aspect which entails determining the identity of a given person, e.g., from among a database of persons known to a system. There currently exists two major approaches for personal identification: a token-based approach requiring a user's possession of an identification device (e.g., a driver's license, door key), or a knowledge based approach requiring a user to possess a certain piece of knowledge (e.g. personal identification numbers or password). Knowledge-based and token-based approaches while effective, may be unsatisfactory for purposes of security in our information society as tokens may be stolen, misplaced or otherwise compromised and knowledge forgotten. Biometric identification refers to identifying an individual based on that person's distinguishing physiological and/or behavioral (e.g., a finger print or voice print). Biometrics have the good property of using an inherent attribute of the user (e.g. a fingerprint). However, for the same reason, biometrics suffer from the risk of the biometric template being compromised (e.g., a user's fingerprint imaged and duplicated).
It would therefor be highly desirable to provide a new kind of personal identification system that is extremely difficult to compromise.